Not bad, just not great

Sunday, January 27, 2013

“This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!”

That quote is from 1935, and it was said by Adolf Hitler.

The takeaway here is that not everything regarding gun regulation and/or perceived control is what it seems.

The recent gun buy-back held in Trenton – and similar ones in Camden and around the country – was a good idea, in theory.

On paper, the buy-back brought in more than 2,500 guns over two days. Who would refuse the opportunity to take that many weapons off the streets?

This city has seen its share of gun violence, and it would likely see more murders if not for the excellent work of our first responders, paramedics and hospitals. There is a seemingly never-ending parade of non-lethal maimings that barely make anyone turn their head.

But what impact did this gun buy-back really have on the streets? It sounds great for public relations, and it’s something everyone can get behind. But it was not likely to have as great an impact as we are led to believe.

The shortfalls of this buy-back program are the same as the devil’s advocate argument against new, tougher gun laws. The average person will have a tougher time getting a gun, but the average gang member will still be able to acquire a weapon through the criminal underworld.

Likewise, how many weapons turned in this weekend were street weapons? Some were, for sure, but the percentage is a lot lower than our most idealistic hopes could condone.

If you could say right now that 1,000 criminals had shown up and surrendered their weapons, this would be the greatest safety and crime prevention program ever devised.

But so many of the guns given up were older weapons by average folks who had no intention of using them to commit a crime or hurt anyone.

Right now, we’ll take anything that will reduce the violence plaguing the city, so this gun buy-back certainly did no harm to that end.

But we shouldn’t fool ourselves that the battle is in any way over, with or without new gun laws. We still need to be vigilant as a society to try and keep our young people from going down a desperate path toward a life of crime and violence.